Sewa demonstrates how crucial it is that all co-op members – whether professionals or grassroots workers – share the values that the federation represents, and think not just of personal benefits but benefits for the collective and all its members.
Being in debt obliges people to work more and more, no matter how precarious the conditions. Debt, in other words, produces obedience, and it affects women differently to men.
The pandemic crisis necessitates the need for solidarity among the working class. A revival of trade unions, focusing on new strategies that can fully adapt to the dynamics of India’s informal economy, is vital for building up this solidarity.
“Algerians cannot and will not put up with being humiliated any longer. They want to live in a democratic Algeria with social justice. The national wealth must be fairly distributed. Clientelism and corruption must be forever banished,”
India's labor market primarily operates within the informal sector and is fraught with the most precarious of conditions, but in an environment where workers can lose their jobs for speaking out, most keep quiet to survive.
The Uganda transport workers strategy for organising informal economy workers was based on understanding that these workers are often already organised, not within unions, but through credit and savings cooperatives, self-help groups, community-based organisations and associations.
Since 16 March, over 100,000 workers across India have participated in work stoppages after a court sentenced 13 unionists to life imprisonment. The charges stem from deadly clashes that took place at the at the Maruti Suzuki India Limited auto plant in 2012 after management refused to recognize a union formed in a bid to end the mass casualisation of jobs and improve working conditions. India's auto industry is one of the world's largest.
International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions that protect worker rights should be binding. Just as international financial institutions have the power to enforce their regulations, so too the ILO should have the power to sanction states or multinational corporations that breach its principles.
Spread the word